Foreign company opening a UK bank account.

Joben_2

Hello,

I am helping a foreign company (in a friendly, non-professional capacity) that want to open a business bank account in the UK. They are not a registered company within the UK as they will have no presence in the UK but they wish to employ staff in the UK. The difficulty is in finding a bank account, I have approached several banks and so far they have been either uninterested or confused as to their own procedures and practices. If anyone can offer me any advice on this topic it would be much appreciated.:)

Savvy_Sue

Does the bank in the foreign country where the company is based have any UK branches, or links with a partner bank? ie come at it from the opposite direction, as it were.

Joben_2

Unfortunately not, they opperate out of a small bank local to them that do not opperate abroad. Thank you anyway.

Atidi

Joben wrote: »

Hello,

I am helping a foreign company (in a friendly, non-professional capacity) that want to open a business bank account in the UK. They are not a registered company within the UK as they will have no presence in the UK but they wish to employ staff in the UK. The difficulty is in finding a bank account, I have approached several banks and so far they have been either uninterested or confused as to their own procedures and practices. If anyone can offer me any advice on this topic it would be much appreciated.:)

Your earlier thread with many (alike) responses here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4830025

... except in that earlier thread you claimed to be their agent, and later in partnership with this overseas business, and here you refer to it as a "friendly, non-professional capacity"

:cool:

Savvy_Sue

Joben wrote: »

Unfortunately not, they opperate out of a small bank local to them that do not opperate abroad.

If you persist in coming at it from the UK end, then I agree with what's said on the other thread. The foreign company should do the running around and approach banks in their 'home' country, and ask how they would go about paying 'employees' based in the UK.

Mind you, I can't see how you can have employees but no 'presence' in the UK ...

londonTiger

i think it is possible. I work in b2b sector. There was one canadian incorporated company who I worked with worth 40M+ but literally had 95% of their workforce in this country. Had some issues credit checking them as I was only allowed to credit check uk and eu businesses.

i think you need to speak to an accountant though. Ive also worked with a few other companies who had UK subsidiaries incorporated here with negligable net worth and the bulk of their money in the parent company based in guernsey.

CKhalvashi

Sue - It certainly is possible.

We have vehicles and employees based in Austria, but no technical presence in the country.

Back to the original question, it is possible to do.

I have a friend in Luxembourg who operates part of a Luxembourg-based company in the UK. I have asked for you, and their banking is with HSBC in the UK, through one of their Commercial Centres. The company in Luxembourg banks with Deutsche Bank.

HSBC was the name that immediately came to mind for me.

CK

colino

As above, HSBC would be the first port of call, they are very good at international small businesses.

poggles

Joben wrote: »

Hello,

I am helping a foreign company (in a friendly, non-professional capacity) that want to open a business bank account in the UK. They are not a registered company within the UK as they will have no presence in the UK but they wish to employ staff in the UK. The difficulty is in finding a bank account, I have approached several banks and so far they have been either uninterested or confused as to their own procedures and practices. If anyone can offer me any advice on this topic it would be much appreciated.:)

If you genuinely have no formal agreement in place with this overseas business (e.g. employee, agent, partnership agreement, whatever) then I can't possibly see how you think you could open a bank account in their name. :huh:

If you do have some form of formal agreement in place and it's not just a "friendly, non-professional capacity" you claim in this thread, then your other one has lots of very good advice.

But any advice offered can only be as good as the details you provide and therefore on which it is based ... and I'm not convinced either are probably entirely accurate. :cool: